Busy!

Well, it's not quite 11pm, Monday night. Arianna is asleep (for now) MUCH earlier than normal, so I thought I'd try to write a quick post. Dan is asleep too, so I'm sitting in the hallway on the floor, using the laptop - the keys are loud, and the mouse-click button squeaks. Lol. Strangely enough, Marissa is still wide awake! She took an extra long nap today for some reason (slept til 4:30!), so I'm not too concerned. But we actually have to get up and go somewhere tomorrow morning, so hopefully she falls asleep soon! I'm still amazed that she's completely dry in her underwear every night now. We used to wake her up to go potty before we went to sleep, but I haven't done that in a while, and she's still been fine! It seems so weird to me that she's old enough to be so responsible!

I got up this morning and got ready to go in to work and drop off the work I did over the weekend. While I was getting ready, I got a call from Cheryl at work, asking me if I could come in tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of today. She said they'd be getting a ton more work today, and I could take some home to do Tuesday night, bring it back and get more Wednesday, and then bring that back on Friday to get my usual weekend work. I don't usually do any during the week, but another girl is going to be gone, and it's at the end of one of their deadlines. Hopefully it won't be too much (I can still tell them how much I want).

Before I found out that I was going to be doing work during the week, we had already planned two play dates. Tomorrow we're going over to my friend Susan's house so we can chat and Marissa can play with her 3 year old. They get along so well, and after they left last time, Marissa cried! Anyways, we'll spend the morning there, and then stop by my work to quickly log in/out all my papers. Then Thursday we're going over to Kate's house (married to Aaron who used to work with Dan). She has a 4 year old boy name Trevor, and an 18-month old girl named Shaelyn (and I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong). Trevor is crazy, but I think it's mostly BOY. Lol. He and Marissa have a blast too, but we haven't even seen them since Arianna was tiny and stayed on a blanket all day! (Did she really used to stay in one place??!)

Wednesday we have to go in to my work to log in/out, and then it's Cubbies night at church for Marissa. And today I got a call from a friend from church who just had a baby recently. Friday we are going to watch her 3 year old boy named Cole while she takes the baby to an appointment, and then I'll have to go in to work sometime that afternoon. He's a sweet boy, but also crazy! He and Marissa had a fun time playing the other night when we all got together for pizza before Cubbies, so I think we're going to try to get together more often.

Phew! That wore me out just typing up our week! Today as I realized all the stuff we'd be doing all week, I started to get overwhelmed. So I actually did work while the girls napped today. Usually I reserve that time for ME time. But today I dusted like crazy (NOT my favorite chore), cleaned the downstairs windows, and picked up some of the junk we tend to leave on our entryway table. Then tonight, Dan took the girls grocery shopping (his task, since he's the Coupon King), and I cooked up some baby food for Arianna. I just used canned veggies and fruit, and mashed them to mush in the food processor. It was a whole lot easier than I was expecting, and I realized that it would be helpful if I had more ice cube trays! I got peas, green beans, potatoes, and peaches done. That should last us a while, since I'm still introducing her to things gradually. She's really only had rice cereal, oatmeal, carrots, applesauce, and apple/prune juice mixed into her cereal. I just mashed the carrots with a fork on a plate and froze a ton in the ice cube trays a while back. But I tried to mash peas on a plate and it did NOT work. Lol. So now we have tons of new stuff for her to try! It was actually kinda fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she reacts to each new food.

Arianna's been letting go of furniture these days and standing completely unassisted for LONG periods of time. It's so funny to see her standing all by herself, using both hands to play with something! Marissa "cruised" for over 4 straight months, so it's possible Arianna will also take this last "step" slowly. But there are times when it looks like she's about to take off already, and I'm not ready! She's also still had this annoying runny nose and cough for quite a while now. The nose thing comes and goes - some days she doesn't have any problems, and other days I can't keep the snot from running down her face! The cough is pretty consistent though - consistently wakes/keeps her up at night - and it's REALLY getting on my nerves! She's totally happy and doesn't care at all, but I do! I don't particularly want to go in to the doctor's office and expose the girls to all those germs there, but I don't want this cough to keep going either. I'm already worried about going in there for her 9-month check-up at the end of November...speaking of...she's 8 months old! We got the email saying what babies this age are normally doing developmentally, and Dan and I just had to laugh: "As your baby's muscles are becoming stronger, she's apt to lunge forward onto all fours from a sitting position. She may go into a "precrawl" exercise, rocking back and forth on hands and knees with her trunk parallel to the floor. Most babies begin to crawl between 7 and 10 months." She's been crawling since 5 months! Our living room constantly looks like a toy bomb went off in it, and it's mostly from Arianna pulling EVERY SINGLE TOY out of her ottoman/toy box (which she has now fallen into twice - so funny! I got a picture the 2nd time, it's coming, don't worry!). She is a joy, but she is sure a handful!

Well, I really should take advantage of Arianna's early night and go to bed before she wakes up again (she is NOT sleeping well these days, so therefore neither am I!). Although, I'm a little hesitant to go to bed with Marissa still wide awake (it's now 11:13)...